


A twist of a soulmate au

by JustATaste



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Depression, Domestic Violence, I ship Éponine with happiness, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, Poor Grantaire, Self Harm, So much angst, Violence, Warnings May Change, both money wise and feeling wise, not e/r tho, why the hell do i write so much angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 21:37:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11170578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustATaste/pseuds/JustATaste
Summary: Grantaire didn't trust soulmates. Enjolras thought the age old system of soulmates was stupid and outdated.They were both right, and they both were wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all like this.

Every child knows that when you turn 13 the first words your soulmate says to you, appear somewhere on your body. 

Most children are excited to see the handwriting of their soulmate appear on their skin. 

Grantaire was not. 

When you learn about soulmates you learn about how wonderful they are. How you never want to be apart from them. 

That was a big issue for Grantaire. Because when your dad beats your mom senseless almost every night, there is nothing you can do to convince her to leave him. 

The first time his father had hurt him, his mother had tried to leave. 

But in their motel room she had wept softly about every kind thing her husband did. About how once he brought her flowers, and they had gotten drunk and had made love under the stars. Then they went home.

In reality his father had picked some flowers from the lawn of a wealthy client and they had fucked in the back of their car. 

The story of how his parents had met wasn't one for the books. His prostitute of a mother had the simple words of 'how much?' spiraling down her ankle, and his father had '$60' near his crotch. 

Hardly the definition of romantic. 

But they had gotten married and had their wonderful son Grantaire.

Skip 10 years and you see just how great their family life was.

Grantaire got beaten daily, trying to take the pain away from his mother. His father always had a beer bottle in hand, and his mother was almost always out working. 

So when the big day came for Grantaire to receive his soulmate tattoo he wasn't too excited.

And when the words 'why are you even here?' Showed up on his wrist he knew that no soulmates were good.


	2. Chapter 2

You couldn't image enjolras's mothers shock when she saw Enjolras's tattoo. 

It took up most of his back and was barely eligible.

It read "My dearest Apollo, how wrong you are! As humans we look for the easy way out! If this seemly magical thing appears on us, how dare we disagree? They must be right! Look at Cosette and Marius! How happy they are! This is the way things are! I see no one else complaining!" 

After the shock wore off she decided she liked her sons soulmate. After her husband had married his soulmate she held a distaste for the way things where.

How you had to marry your soulmate. If you didn't meet your soulmate after 15 years you could marry another, but if you met them after you still must marry your soulmate. How people where shunned for not having one, and if you had many you where nothing more than a slut. 

So of course Enjolras learned his distaste for the system from his beautiful mother. 

And the distaste he held. Now Enjolras believed in changing many things. Not only the rules of soulmates, but the rules that society made for everything.

Now it doesn't matter if you are gay, straight, bisexual, or pansexual. As long as you had words somewhere on your body you were fine. 

So your sexual orientation did not matter, all you needed were the words. But some people had many words. 

When Enjolras first got to college, he had revived a broken nose from a man who was being blankly racist and Enjolras of course called him out. 

So as he sat with an old -now thawing- bag of frozen peas, he listened to a man talk about his soulmate. 

Well soulmates.

His name was Bossuet. He was at the hospital because he was visiting his wonderful boyfriend, and they were going out to dinner with their girlfriend Musichetta.

He had explained that most people felt uncomfortable with the fact that there were three of them. 

Enjolras had scoffed, and said "as a society we expect you to marry and love your soulmate, but if they are different from the norm, than you must be wrong, and how dare you follow these rules we set upon you."

Enjolras had become a fast friend to them.

\---   
Enjolras had met a couple other people who felt the same way for these rules. Some were even straight couples like Marius and Cosette. They just didn't agree with the way things were. 

There was Éponine a girl with no words across her body. She didn't mind, she told everyone her love was for her two cats and her now six year old couch. 

 

Enjolras felt comfortable with his friends. He loved them, yet he showed no one his tattoo.

He felt like he should at times, but he didn't want anyone to know of the strangeness of his tattoo.


	3. Chapter 3

Èpoinine was the one to force Grantaire to come. 

They had know each other for years, and they would take a bullet for the other.

"No"

"R please? They want more people to come! I said I'd bring you." Éponine said without breaking eye contact.

"No. We both know what I think about soulmates." Grantaire replied pushing himself off of his chair. 

"You hate them. I know. But so do these people."

"Well than, why aren't we all besties? I'll start making the friendship bracelets right away!" Grantaire said holding up his middle finger the whole time.

Éponine crossed her arms. "Please? It would mean a lot. And besides you owe me. Remember when I saved your ass from that douche? After you called him some random ass name, while you were very drunk." 

"I have no clue what your talking about" Éponine frowned. "but I'll go because I love you."

The frown turned into a grin. 

She pulled Grantaire out the door all while talking about all her friends. 

*******

Looking around Grantaire could tell that these people were close. A collective smile arose from all of them when Éponine walked in, and a collective confused frown appeared when Grantaire followed in behind her. 

Éponine didn't notice or pretended not to, and she pulled Grantaire by her side and introduced him.

"This is Grantaire, because you guys wanted me to bring him, here he is." 

Grantaire gave a little wave before putting both hands in his pockets. 

Someone jumped up and ran over to him. 

And hugged him. 

Hard.

"Hello! I'm Jean it's so nice to met you! I love your hair! It's so curly! Kinda like mine. Except yours is darker."

"Um hi." Grantaire shifted his weight onto his other foot.

"And yours is more tangly. Like a rivers. Courf says mine is like a pond. Or did I say that? Ohhh I think I told him that. Oh yeah that's Courf" Jean said pointing to a man who gave him a big smile " he's nice, you'll like him. And you'll meet everyone else a little bit more soon enough!"

A man stood up from where he was staring intensely down at his phone and said "ok let's get this meeting started."

And they did.


	4. Chapter 4

The longer the meeting went on the more annoyed Grantaire got. 

He wanted whiskey, but when he got up to order it, he was shot down by a glaring Eponine.

So, he sat staring at a wall, picking at his cuts, and kind of listened to the people talk.

And by kind of he really didn’t. 

It wasn’t because he didn’t believe in anything they were saying. 

He really did. What he didn’t believe, was that they could change things.

They talked with hope in their voices. Their smiles could light a candle, and they looked so inspired by what their leader was saying. 

Grantaire couldn’t blame them, for their hope.

He had hope once. Hope that the way things were could change.

But there was a difference between Grantaire and them.

They truly believed that all of this could change. That someday soulmates wouldn’t control who you married, and who you loved. They believed that people like Eponine could one day not have to worry about getting to parts of forms that say “have you met your soulmate? Does your soulmate speak the same language as you? What does your soul mark say?” 

That Musichetta, Joly, and Bosseut, wouldn’t get glared at for loving one another. That one day all three of them could get married.

Grantaire on the only hand didn’t.  
Yes, he once did a long long time ago. 

He did when he was young and stupid. He would look at his parents and think that one day they could separate. That one day someone would stop his father from hurting him and his mother.

But no one did. 

Grantaire learned about that fact of life fast. 

That nothing is going to change. That people don’t care, because they have found their soulmate.

And that was a big part of it. 

Everyone was happy with their soulmates. Sure, there were couples like his parents where on hurt the other constantly, and one wanted desperately to leave, but they still loved each other. 

People loved their soulmates. They felt safe and happy when they were together. 

And when these people talked like Soulmates were a bad thing it made him crack up. 

Hell some of these people had already found their soulmates. 

And yet they still talked like they wanted to end the Soulmate tradition. 

They maybe might be able to end some laws saying that you had to marry your soulmate, or make it normal to have more than one, but stop the whole thing? Yeah right.

And Grantaire could tell that some people knew that it was a load of bullshit and most likely nothing would come of these meetings.

But their leader belived. And that made everyone else want to try.

Again, Grantaire couldn’t blame them. 

Their leader a man named Enjolras, was outspoken about his opinions.

Grantaire only had to listen for a little while to learn that his father had left him and his mother for his soulmate. 

“What a terrible thing to happen” Grantaire thought with a internal smirk. “how dare his father leave them for his soulmate. Who he would hold so much love for.”

But Grantaire did have to admit that he was drawn into Enjolras’s talks. 

Whither it was because of his ideas and the way he talker or because of Enjolras himself, Grantaire didn’t know.

Grantaire would have to admit that both Enjolras’s words and his body caught Grantaire’s attention.

Enjolras’s bodys was a match with the gods. He was tall and lean, but not in a baby deer kind of way. His rare smile could quite possibly kill you, Grantaire wanted to run his fingers through his almost golden blonde hair, and his blue eyes could draw you in and never let go.

But Grantaire knew he was over reacting. 

He knew that they could never be, due to Enjolras’s hate for love, and Grantaire’s fear of it. 

But the hope that they could still fuck was quite present in the back of Grantaire’s mind.

\----------  
Knowing that the meeting would soon come to a close (at least Grantaire hoped it would), Grantire made himself pay closer attention, due to the fact that Eponine would question him later. 

“But why are people like this? Why do people fall into the trap of soulmates? Why do people so strongly believe this is the only option?” Enjolras voice rang out across the room, and Grantaire was quite surprised that he could block it out so easily. Well he did have practice with Epoinine. 

Sighing he went over Enjolras’s words. It was an easy answer, and Epoinine would have proof that Grantaire was “paying attention”.

"My dearest Apollo, how wrong you are! As humans we look for the easy way out! If this seemly magical thing appears on us, how dare we disagree? They must be right! Look at Cosette and Marius! How happy they are! This is the way things are! I see no one else complaining!"

Everyone looked at him in shock, but most of all Enjolras.

Yet being the most effected one, Enjolras was the quickest to recover and shot back “why are you even here?”

Grantaire dismissed the possility of those words being connected to the ones on his wrist and replied “I’m sorry?”

Seeing Epoinines look Enjolras thought carefully about his nexts words, before saying “if you think our cause is stupid why are you here.”

Grantaire snorted before sitting up “because my dear friend forced me to come. And yes, I know that not one of you wants me here” seeing Jehan ready to say something Grantaire held up his hand “I saw those looks when I arrived. For a group that wants to get the word out about your cause you might need to be more open to the thought of visitors”

“Well didn’t really expect a man looking mostly drunk and like he hadn’t showered in weeks, come stumbling in” Enjolras threw back not really thinking.

Grantiare knew that he hadn’t even drank remotely enough to get close to drunk, and that he had showered yesterday. 

But never one to give up a reason to leave early, Grantaire smiled, got up, pushed in his seat, flipped off Enjolras, and walked out.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> O M G!!!!! I'm updating? After like 80 years?? Who is she ?? Also- my boy Grantaire struggles with hella bad depression (I'm pushing myself on to him sorry not sorry) so just warning y'all.

"You didn't have to leave. Honestly Taire you don't expect me to take your side on this? I love you but sometimes you need to keep your mouth shut."

Nothing soothed Grantaire's feelings of sadness, self-hatred, and doubt like a bottle of whiskey, and Éponine passive-aggressively telling him how he should've acted.

"Éponine, what kinda group expects to not have any retaliation against them? And don't give me any bullshit on how I should have been nicer. Did you see them? The only welcoming person in that room was Jean. Hell I wonder what they would've done if you didn't warn them."

"Grantaire they're my friends. You could've at least tried."  
  
Grantaire was down to just forget about it. Down to forget about how nice Jean was, even though the rest of them laid down the egg shells they were gonna make Grantaire walk on. The only time he planned on talking about them again was when he told his therapist how he met new people and actually tried to be nice. Well until decided that it wasn't worth it. Maybe he shouldn't tell her anything.

But no. Éponine had to keep bring it up.

"Can you just drop it Éponine? Just this once?"

"Fine. Just pretend that you weren't an asshole last night. Pretend that you didn't hurt all their feelings"

"Well Eponine I'm so down to do that. I think us ignoring that will go hand in hand with you ignoring how they basically treated me like I was less then them, and how their leader decided that I wasn't worth his attention cause I wasn't fucking perfect. I just need to be alone. So fuck off for a while."

"Fine. Don't do anything stupid. And don't drink anymore then I would."

Maybe the gods were finally on his side. They had blessed him with quietness to think.

To think about all the judging eyes. To think about the words that the Greek god had said. The same words that he had tried to burn away with his mothers cigarettes. The same words he scratched at until blood surround them when he had a panic attack. Those words.

Those stupid fucking words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all I'm actually really sorry for the long ass wait, but I've been dealing with a lot of issues™ But I've been getting better and I decided to pick this up again.

**Author's Note:**

> Give me love and attention and I'll keep writing.


End file.
